Europa II poems

Europa II

 

Andy N 

I

Blanket heavy

They hid him

For three weeks

In one of their handcarts

Piling language

All over the top

As he was a parcel

And coats

Designed to keep him hidden

From the heavy batons

The soldiers carried

Like spare arms

Recoiling on themselves

In a desperate panic

To protect him

As long as they could

Hoping things would get better

But alas in the end

It didn’t matter

Not for a second.

II

Before getting on the trains

They gave them bread and stale water

That was at least a month old,

Throwing their clothes into a

Different carriage

Promising it would follow

(which they all knew was a lie)

and when they arrived

in the endless rain

the first thing they saw

was a girl sat outside

the barracks with no hair

no shoes

and no family

leaving them thinking

they had gone to a nuthouse

not realising in about two hours

they would look exactly the same.

Nick Armbrister's poems

Science Project

God leant back and thought: Job well done. I've made the world, well the human's world, perfect. After all the hard work, it's finally done.

In truth, God had created a world that was fucked. It was so screwed up and imperfect, it was hardly perfect. But God didn't mind. He spent a long time crafting it so. To Him, it was perfect. He meant to do it this way.

Meanwhile, down below, people grumbled, killed and created chaos. Yes God, a job well done.

Hunter Becomes the Hunted

World War 2 is still relevant in 2014. Widow of a Kriegsmarine Captain's U-boat still misses her husband. How she wishes he'd had a shore posting and not gone to sea. When he died in his steel coffin, he left a wife and a child. His last resting place is now known off the Cornish coast with two other subs.

All crew killed, sunk by a deep British minefield, 70 foot down. The subs were after coastal convoys, open ocean hunting was too dangerous. As it turned out so was near the shore.

Today in the clear blue water lie three shattered U-boats:

U-325, U-400 and U-1021.

Two are hundreds of miles where they should be. For decades family members knew the wrong location. Now the mystery is solved. All sunk by Type 17 mines. The widow's flowers float on the sea where her husband died. His remains and his crew lie dozens of metres down. The sub crews varied from inexperienced to war vets. At rest together.

The uncle of one submariner still grieves and says we never learn from past events, do we?